Richard White loved to experience wild and beautiful places. At age 49, he had recently left Ferring Pharmaceuticals after a 12 year career with them, most recently as the Director of Exploratory Pharmacology, and was looking for a new job where he could pursue drug discovery and medical innovation for rare and neglected diseases. White earned his PhD in Zoology/Endocrinology from the University of Texas at Austin and went on to post doctoral research positions at the University of Manchester in London and Stanford University (my alma matter). He was married to German born Silke White, owner of Silke Smiles, a dental arts and technology boutique and was father to 21-month old Mona.

Last week White was making a repeat visit to Denali National Park for a planned 5-day solo back country trek. He enjoyed photography and spent the last 8 minutes of his life capturing 26 images of a 600 pound male grizzly bear on a gravel bar of the Toklat River some three miles south of the rest stop (pictured above) used by park buses to transport visitors into the park’s interior. The first photo was taken from a distance of 75 yards and the last from a distance of 60 yards as White approached the bear. In the last five frames, taken over 13 seconds, the bear stops foraging on berries, takes notice of White, and begins to approach him in what has been described as a non aggressive manner. What happened next has yet to be determined exactly. What is known is that Dr. White was mauled to death by the bear which was killed the next day by a state trouper after confirming its identity from the photos and having discovered it still guarding and feeding on the body. News of this gruesome event certainly caught my attention having stood on the banks of the same river with Jeanine exactly three weeks prior to the incident. Park biologists report that 12 grizzly bears have been living near this section of the Toklat this summer putting the odds at 1 in 12 that the bear pictured below was the killer. I took this photo from a park bus through an open window in the immediate vicinity of the attack.

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My heart aches for his wife and daughter and I find myself deeply saddened by the death of a man I did not know, perhaps because we are of a similar age and shared many interests. While his death was untimely and tragic, I believe he departed this world doing what he loved in a place he loved. When my time comes, I hope the same can be said of me. I would rather die in mortal combat with a bear than in a traffic accident with a drunk driver or in a hospital bed in a state of decrepitude.

For the record, I carry bear spray in a chest harness (aiding rapid deployment) whenever in bear country. Had I been in Richard White’s shoes I would have likely remained to take photos and moved closer as well. Had the bear noticed and begun approaching me, I would have backed away slowly, calmly talking to the bear (“Hey bear, hey bear”) while releasing the safety on my pepper spray and making ready to fire it if required. While I do take some chances in my desire for adventure and compelling photographs, I try to balance this risk with precautionary measures and knowledge of what I am doing.

Pictured below is my closest encounter with a grizzly while in Alaska’s Katmai National Park. I would estimate the distance to be about 10 feet, fifteen times closer than White was. The difference is that I was part of a large group (there is no record ever of a grizzly attack on a group of three or more people) led by an experienced guide and the bear was part of a large community of well nourished bears which has been habituated to close human presence over many years, viewing us as neither a threat nor food source.